


the first step is always scary

by cdocks



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 04:04:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16946664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cdocks/pseuds/cdocks
Summary: I can't explain it very well but it seems that lately, it doesn't matter, human or spirit. If your hearts touch, it's the same thing. || Touko Fujiwara finds out a secret about her foster son. For Yuletide 2018





	the first step is always scary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kornevable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kornevable/gifts).



Perhaps it’s easy to forget, in light of everything, that Takashi wasn’t the only one who grew up with _youkai_.

Not that it’s anywhere close -- Touko is a distant relative, third or fourth cousin, many times removed, barely any trace of that Natsume family blood in her veins. If it were to be laid out on paper, perhaps the link is truly only through marriage, rather than blood. Touko doesn’t know; she hasn’t checked. Why bother, now that Takashi is here?

But regardless: superstition is alive and well, especially out in the countryside. Touko grew up watching her grandmother leave piles of salt outside the back door, to banish evil spirits, watched the old woman gently guide spiders outside with the early-morning sun (“a spider in the morning is good luck, Touko-chan, so never never kill a morning spider”) and swat at them in the evenings. She eagerly threw handfuls of roasted soybeans during _Setsubun_ to cast out _oni_ , avoided the gaze of crows on the way to and from school, to keep away bad fortune. When her father aired out the family’s storage rooms in the warming spring air, Touko ducked between the dusty wrapped furniture and under tables stacked high with boxes, trying to catch a glimpse of _zashiki-warashi_.

Until her classmates made fun of her for it, Touko even woke herself up at 2:00am, whenever she could manage, to try and see the _youkai_ pass through the world of the living. Her grandmother had told her this time, the witching hour, was when the veil between the human and _youkai_ world was the thinnest, when those who had eyes to see could peer past the mundane and see something spectacular. Touko’s grandmother would even swear that, one night, when she was very young, she had spotted a _kappa_ toddling drunkenly away from a raucous youkai festival.

Silly things, the superstitions of an old country woman, who worried about little more than eating natto and watching the sun rise, but Touko soaked up every word, tucked it away to share later. With who, she was never sure -- her friends at school were never interested, the boys she walked home with were always more interested in holding her hand or stammering out confessions. Perhaps, someday, she thought, there would be a child of her own to -- --

but no. No, there were other things to do for so long, exams to study for, universities to get accepted to. There were late nights spent in coffee shops, two in the morning coming and going without the tiniest _youkai_ to catch her attention. There was tall, earnestly awkward Shigeru Fujiwara, with his stubbly chin and his wire-rimmed glasses, falling all over his words when he asked Touko to dinner. There was their life to build, then, places to travel together, a home to make her own, and she had always assumed that part of it could come later.

And for such a long time, Touko was so happy to have her part-time job and the hole in the upstairs tatami mat and the birds nesting in the roof to worry about, nothing more. She had the toughened soil of Shigeru’s family garden to coax into life, she had the leaves swirling around her ankles when she swept the front walk, she had her soft-spoken husband to greet every morning and point out the spots he’d missed shaving. She had such a full, beautiful life that the years passed by so sweet and fast before they even thought about children. The news, then, that it had always been doomed to failure, that even if they had tried when they were first married it wouldn’t have worked...

...well. Touko’s grandmother had told her about the _ubume_ , a spirit that wanders the world as a woman soaked in blood, holding a bundled child in her arms and weeping. The youkai asks passers-by to hold her baby, just for a moment, and when they comply, the bundle grows heavier and heavier until it’s revealed the child was just a heavy stone, wrapped in a blanket. Touko thinks, pinning her greying hair back and noticing the lines around her eyes, perhaps this legend is a fitting way to explain the particular lonesome ache she carries around.

Yet the sun is still raising over the forest, and there are beads of dew dancing on the leaves of the tree outside her window, and there are baby foxes in the meadow and bees in the flowers, and Touko cannot be sad when the world is so very beautiful. Her life is simple and sweet and full, and she learns Shigeru’s favorite meals and she hangs their sheets out to dry in the high noon of summer, and her burden is less and less with each year.

So when Takashi Natsume asks -- pleads, with his bandages and his overgrown, unkempt hair and those big, big teary eyes -- to come home with them, from his place in a hospital bed, Touko thinks perhaps she had been waiting for him. He’s not a baby, he’s not even really a child anymore, a head taller than her in his socked feet, but he fits into their quiet, simple life. He’s quiet too, going against everything Touko had thought about teenagers, his manners are impeccable, his voice is soft and deferential, and she tells Shigeru that she wishes he would slam doors or stomp up and down the stairs, that he would take instead of giving and giving.

Touko and Shigeru aren’t parents, they aren’t sure when to pry and when to give Takashi his space, and part of her is so frustrated by this. Sometimes when he comes down for dinner with his hair sticking up on one side from an impromptu nap at his desk, or when she sees him sidestep a line of ants trekking across the path so he doesn’t hurt them, her chest aches with a dizzying tenderness. Sometimes he’s thoughtless, so thoughtless she could cry, like the time he disappeared without telling them where or for how long. Touko hadn’t slept all night, tasting fear like hot metal in her mouth, thinking of every awful news story she’d ever heard and all the terrible things that could’ve happened to Takashi. She’d never been so relieved and so indignant as when he’d finally called them, hearing in his voice how bewildered he was by their fear.

 _You’re part of this family_ , she’d wanted to tell him, over and over until he finally understood. _You’re part of my family and I was so scared for you_. She’d let Shigeru talk instead, lecture in the soft, firm tone only he had, tell Takashi how important it was to tell them where he was. He’d never done it again, had always made a point of telling her where he was going and when he’d be back.

Still, when she hears the floorboards creak at the same time three nights in a row, Touko knows something is amiss. Perhaps it’s a semblance of a mother’s intuition, perhaps it’s just that squeaky stair outside their bedroom door, but on the fourth night, she gets up, pulls on her robe and slippers and tiptoes down after Takashi. It’s late, the clock on the wall just ticking from 1:59 to 2:00 am, and Touko feels a shiver of excitement she hadn’t since she was very small and listening to her grandmother’s stories. _If you look outside during the witching hour, Touko-chan…_

“Sensei, it’s late and I have school in the morning. Are you sure this is the last night we’ll have to do this?” The answer is rumbling, like mountains shifting, like the ocean roaring, like the heaven’s parting, (“Do not question me, Natsume, I know so much more than any human ever could about this ritual!”) and Touko opens the front door to a mountain of shimmering white fur.

_..you’ll see youkai._

The beast sitting in her front yard cocks it’s enormous head, one golden eye sizing her up, it’s long tail flicking back and forth, even as Takashi whirls around and holds out his arms like he’s somehow going to keep her from seeing the creature. “T-Touko-san!” he stammers, going pale, bare feet curling against the dewy grass, dropping a handful of berries and leaves he'd been holding up to the creature's nose. He’s clearly searching for an explanation as to why there’s a magnificently enormous cross between a dragon and a fox knocking over her tomato plants with every twitch of it’s tail.

Touko slowly steps out onto the front porch, arms crossing against the chill, looking up and up at the creature. It’s beautiful, lupine features serene, huge paws crossed one over the other without a care in the world. It looks almost like -- “Nyankichi-kun?” she manages finally.

There’s another of those rumbling, smug chuckles. “See, Natsume?” comes the booming voice, as the creature lowers its head and sends a huff of warm breath towards Touko. “She can recognize my magnificence, no matter what beautiful form I take.”

Takashi makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan, still trying to put himself between Touko and the beast. “I can. I can explain.” His voice cracks on the last word, and Touko sees then that his hands are trembling.

She clicks her tongue, stepping off the porch and reaching out, gently catching both of Takashi’s cold hands in her own. “You’re freezing, Takashi-kun! What are you doing out here without your robe, or even your slippers? Come inside, right now!”

Chafing his fingers with her own, Touko glances up at the huge white beast, frowning for a moment before adding: “You come too, Nyankichi, but not like that. If you can come inside the regular way, I’ll let you have the last shrimp dumplings.”

The golden eyes widen, and there’s a puff of sweet-scented smoke, a sound like the wind in the trees, and the orb-like shape of Takashi’s strange cat is immediately waddling up the front steps and into the open door. Touko stifles a laugh, before looking back at her foster son.

He’s -- terrified. She can see it in the set of his shoulders, the tightness at his jaw, the way he looks down at her and doesn’t say anything. It’s too much like he was those first few days, unsure of his place, unsure that he would be allowed to stay. Waiting for the misstep that would cause them to send him away.

Touko squeezes Takashi’s cold hands in her own, tight as she can, thinking about the wise _tengu_ with their long noses, about lakes filled with _ningyo_ and old teacups becoming _tsukomogami._ She thinks about Takashi thanking her every day for his lunches, about him helping take in the laundry and clean up after dinner, about hearing “I’m home!” and seeing his shoes neatly lined up by the front door.

She squeezes his hands again.

“Come inside, Takashi,” Touko says softly. “You can tell me -- whatever it is you’d like to tell me. I’ll listen, whatever it is. I’ll believe it all.”

She can see he doesn’t quite believe her yet, but he follows her back inside, closes the door carefully and pulls the round shape of his cat out of the fridge, where it’s helping itself to the dumplings. Touko puts on the water for tea, puts the last of the dumplings on a plate for the cat, and settles herself at the table. “So,” she prompts, folding her hands, waiting patiently for Takashi to find the right words.

A moment of hesitation more, and Takashi's shivering fingers bury into Nyankichi's plush fur, stroking through it as he finally begins: “All my life I’ve...seen things. I guess you could...call them youkai…”

Touko had saved up every story her grandmother had told her, every legend and myth and folktale. She had sprinkled salt outside the door and guided spiders through open windows and looked away from crows on telephone wires. She hadn’t known she’d been waiting to share everything with Takashi, not until the witching hour that night. Not until he started to share with her too.

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh, this was so much fun to write!!! The prompt mentioned the Fujiwaras, who I just LOVE, and who definitely deserve the whole world!!! I thought it'd be interesting to have something from Touko's point of view, since she's a fascinating character. I hope you enjoyed!!!


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